Global Fastener News

Ford CEO: Bailout Won’t Boost Auto Fastener Imports

Jason Sandefur

Talks between Congress and CEOs of the Big Three Automakers touched on the issue of imported automotive fasteners from China.

During a Financial Services Committee meeting, Rep. Don Manzullo of Illinois pressed Ford CEO Alan Mulally to guarantee that the proposed taxpayer bailout of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors and won’t be used to outsource cheaper foreign fasteners and other components.

Manzullo asked Mulally to confirm that Ford is “not going to be increasing purchases from Chinese and other overseas suppliers” of fasteners and tools and dyes.

“Yes,” Mulally stated. “Part of our strategy is to make them the same standard, not necessarily where we buy them. Our plan is to grow our business in the United States.”

Manzullo, whose district includes Rockford, was not satisfied by that response.

“You didn’t answer the question,” Manzullo insisted. “Are you going to use U.S. taxpayer dollars to resource — or to source more tool and dye equipment and fasteners from overseas facilities for American manufacturers?

“No. No,” Mulally reiterated.

GM CEO Rick Wagoner reportedly made the same commitment during a Senate Banking Committee meeting.

The exchange came as Congress mulls a multi-billion dollar bailout of Detroit amid the worst monthly jobs report in more than 30 years. The unemployment rate rose to 6.7% in November. Experts say the U.S. economy has lost nearly two million in 2008.

In June Manzullo told the Mid-West Fastener Association that it’s wrong to “replace manufacturing with unemployment.”

“We should look upon manufacturing as the backbone of the American economy,” Manzullo urged.

In contrast, other countries continue to prize manufacturing jobs. In those nations the emphasis is on how to improve manufacturing. That long-term view has paid off for the Japanese.

Part of the American problem is that public companies are under huge short-term pressure to generate maximum profits instead of investing in the future, Manzullo acknowledged.

But the U.S. can still manufacture, declared the congressman first electing in 1992. Aerospace is the nation’s number one export and there is a critical shortage of engineers.

Manzullo has tried to help the fastener industry, assisting Acument Global Technologies in obtaining a research grant and helping to advance aerospace titanium.

Manzullo criticized his fellow Republican – George W. Bush – for the “horrible error of steel tariffs” during Bush’s first term as president. Instead today “free market forces left alone are yielding extraordinary things taking place in the steel industry,” Manzullo said. Foreign producers are taking advantage of the opportunities.

Manzullo noted one of his legislative aides recently bought a Toyota Prius and noticed 62% of components are American parts. In order to be NAFTA compliant, the American parts are used in a car assembled in Japan.

The negative attitude toward manufacturing jobs has to change, Manzullo stated. �2008 FastenerNews.com